Thursday, January 7, 2016

One of the places I
always wanted to go.It is considered
the driest desert on earth and as a result my lips were all cracked and my
hands dried up too.It is cold at night
and I really did not suffer much from heat in the daytime but sunburned. Surprisingly
there is water in the Salares, small salty lakes where birdlife is abundant as
well as a few species of rodents.The
terrain is varied with flat rocky areas, volcanoes and as can be expected, lots
of sands and salt in the dried-up lakes.San Pedro de Atacama, a small tourist town was the place from where I
departed for the daily adventures; usually left before the sunrise and returned
by sunset.Two weeks before I arrived
there was a rare rain period during which the desert was converted into a
colorful flowered garden but by the time I got there, they were all gone. There
are not trees unless they were planted by humans around the small villages.

Probably the bigger
reason to go there is the colorful rough topography among the canyons and rock
formations.These are better
photographed in the early and late afternoon. It is difficult to capture a
representative set of images to characterize this desert due to the variety of
formations caused by erosion throughout thousands of years.The alluvial fans and the canyons are
geological formations resulting from the action of water during eons of years? Waters shows up as torrential rains in with an
average rain fall of less than ½ inch per year and not every year. There is a Valley of the Moon and a Valley of
the Death and interestingly, there are valleys with the same names in the neighboring
countries of Argentina and Bolivia. I did not bother to identify most locations
where most of the landscapes were taken because the topography as in music, variations
in a theme. The rock tower below is at the Salar de Tara.

El Tatio is a geyser field
not as extensive as those found in Yellowstone or Iceland but still a
worthwhile visit.In 2009 there were attempts
to develop geothermal energy that failed resulting in abandoned equipment ruins
the views.The geyser field name in Quechuan
means oven; several tourist tours brought breakfast to the field and their
major attraction was to boil the eggs in the hot pools. It is a good strategy
to get there early in the morning before the geyser field gets full of tourist
ruining the landscape.Do not expect to
see frequent or very high geyser eruptions. In the road to the geyser field to
there were fresh water lakes where several species of birds were nesting. The
giant coot was most active making nests and a bit lazy. Below, one coot going
to the nest being built by a gull; when the later was gone looking for more
materials, the coot will come and steal it; that is why the gull was attacking
the coot.After delivering the stolen
material to its nest, the coot exchanged places with the nesting one that in
turn went to eat the grass at the bottom of the lake. The church at the closest
village of Machuca dates back to 1765 has mud walls and the doors closed...no
visitors allowed.

At the Laguna Chaxa national park where various species of
birds where I photographed the Andean avocet and flamingos. There are also a
lizards not found in other areas as well as Darwin’s leaf-eared mice. In the
way back I stopped and visited the church in the village of Socaire where the
door was open.

I had never seen a
vizcacha before but I was told that these were rare in the area and not easy to
find.I was lucky…saw a friendly couple
that were not too active; one sat at the entrance to its cave totally ignoring
me, so I got some shots. There were also rodents that lives in colonies called
tuco-tucos because the calls they made.As soon as they saw me they ran into their burrows, I sat on the ground
and waited for about 15 minutes.They
came out and just ignored me while grooming and doing their tuco-tuco talk. Any
fast movement or bird of prey flying overhead and they dove back into their tunnels;
I had a great time with them.

I was adventuresome and flew a
South African Aerotrike Delta ultralight with a wing made in Ukranie with engine
from Austria. The flight was smooth overall and got the opportunity to take
some aerial photography of the Valleys of the Moon and the Death. The white color is not snow but mostly salt. The helmet
was sliding behind my back all the time; I was afraid that it will be dragged
by the wind into the propeller behind me. But the pilot assured me that in case
of engine failure, we could safely glide and land. I will do it again.

It is time to
move on to another adventure to the other end of the world, where there also geysers but a frozen environment; stay tuned.